


The Gravity Between Stars

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Burning Bright, F/F, Fluff, Found Families, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Happy Ending, Star Guardians, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 16:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: "Lux feels herself brightening with realization; she would never try to become friends with someone just because she felt it was her duty, there is more to friendships than that. They needed more than just an abstract mission to tie them together cohesively."(Lux gets the idea that in order to be a proper Star Guardian team, they need to be friends, too.)





	The Gravity Between Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my dearly beloved dunsparceus as a part of Fandom Loves Puerto Rico. Darling, I hope you enjoy it!

Pretty early on, Lulu realizes that Jinx doesn’t remember her Birth as a Guardian the way the rest of them do. It takes a while, though, for Lulu to understand that’s probably an intentional decision.

The moment Lulu, a whimsical girl with an imagination too big for a mortal body, wandered into the forest after a mischievous fae spirit, she was lost to any normal life. She heard many voices in the centuries she wandered the fae world with Pix, but the First Star speaking was never a voice, not exactly, and never left any room for doubt. The sunlight broke the miasma and crept through the ornately colored foliage and she knew, as she had always suspected, than she was destined for something bigger than aimless wandering, trapped in her own head.

Pix had chittered in terror and clung to her even as she glowed, even as she _burned_ , bright and impossible, laughing at the sky and feeling it smile back. There was no need for fear, not from this, this fire was _hers_. The fear would come later, but to be able to face that, she had to let the light in first.

From that day forward, Lulu was with the First Star, felt the glowing warmth of her own starlight nestled warm and bright inside her ribs, always present, always close, always beating beside her heart. She bears this inside of her with a peaceful sort of joy.

But Lulu is getting to know her teammates. Even with the near constant scowl on Jinx’s face that is most often replaced by a smile so mean it scares the warmth from a room, the First Star only ever speaks of her with quiet sadness that is not exactly remorse, but close enough that Lulu understands. This piece of Jinx, at least, she gets.

To someone like Jinx, having something foreign and burning in your chest must feel like the worst sort of home invasion. She’s too mean to try and kick it out – _she knows she can’t_ – so she convinces herself she’s taken it hostage and can do what she wants with it. She doesn’t _want_ the truth, it doesn’t matter to her. When someone goes after their own memories with a rocket launcher, they aren’t really aiming for precision; Jinx rarely ever does.

They’d had to run for it after their first fight, after Jinx had nearly leveled an entire city block with weaponry they wouldn’t be able to explain to the authorities, even _if_ Jinx hadn’t made one of the cops step in a trap. They’d been arguing the whole way home and Lulu was just about to enchant the both of them when—

“ _Honor my ass_ ,” Jinx had said and she and Poppy had yelled for so long, Lulu had nearly shut herself in her closet until Janna and Lux gained some semblance of control. It wasn’t control; it was Lux tearing up and Jinx and Poppy slamming doors to blot out the image, but for 3am after a battle on a school night, it was enough.

Lux nearing her breaking point was usually enough.

They’re on the patio one night after another such stalemate, Jinx sitting in a lawn chair listening to music too loudly while Lulu sits beside her legs in the grass, staring straight up at the stars poking into view. Some are just stars, but others are like them, the First Star says. She doesn’t mention that right now; they have a long way to go and a lot of things to hit between there and here.

Instead, she turns to watch Jinx, the star who is already here, but quite obviously, somewhere else, too. She hasn’t lost her mind, not like she would have people think – but she did have some part of her burnt off. That crater was already in place when Lulu met her, leaving her callous and savage, a chaos goddess screaming with laughter. …Huh. She’d like that, if Lulu said it, but then she might get a little too _inspired_ for so late at night and—

“ _What_ , Shrimp?” Jinx snaps too loudly, tugging out an ear bud and opening an eye to glare down at her.

Long past the point of being in any way afraid of her, Lulu just tips her head. She has too many questions and not the right words for any of them; she also knows that even if she asked, Jinx is not a fan of straight answers to those sorts of things.

“Where’s Lux?” she asks instead, and the First Star tickles at her for it, understanding what she means, but doesn’t betray Jinx for the sake of Lulu’s curiosity. That’s fine. Lulu’s not to the point of active concern yet.

Jinx sits up sharply like she’s been accused. “How should I know?” she says, popping her ear bud back into her ear and stomping into the house. Her reaction is answer enough to something Lulu couldn’t quite phrase, the answer to where this is going, where they’re falling.

She looks up at the darkness of Lux’s window and hopes they’ll land somewhere nice.

Something in her chest tells her it is.

//

Lux remembers her life _before_ in a very abstract sort of way.

There was something mundane about the way her parents had wished her dreams were smaller, the way her brother had wanted her to stay home and fulfil a family duty instead of taking on the world. Lux was a headstrong little girl who always had light in her chest, even before the First Star woke her up. The only thing about her past that is distinctly clear is her Birth and Jinx, those two things inseparably mixed up in Lux’s heart.

When they were young and Jinx’s smile wasn’t so sharp and her hands were warm and tiny as they wiped the tears off a littler Lux’s face, cooing, “ _Clumsy little star, always falling!_ ” And she’d giggled – _giggled, not cackled_ – a bright and happy sound that made Lux’s tears stop faster than the bandage on her knee. Lux remembers Jinx’s laughter like it was a dream, like the warmth exploding in her chest and pinking across her cheek happened somewhere that doesn’t really exist.

The grass that was itchy under her legs and the stars twinkling overhead feel like they happened in a bubble, a closed off place in which this cheerful, light version of her best friend is held tight away from the reality of who they have to be now.

There’s so much light all around them, brilliant, beautiful light. Jinx doesn’t want any of it. Sometimes, on very bad nights, it twists in Lux’s chest to think she might not want any of Lux either. To top that off with the team dynamic struggling to stay even remotely cordial, let alone cohesive, Lux is starting to… to _doubt._ She doesn’t want to doubt the First Star’s mission for her, for any of them, not when she can clearly feel the golden light in her chest like she feels her own heartbeat. But something is not working and she can’t help but think it’s the fact that she’s the team leader.

Tonight it was only her tears that kept their internal fighting from escalating and now, sitting on a park bench feeling lost, feeling like a _fool_ , she can’t stop them.

“ _Aw, what’s got the Starlight all dimmed tonight?_ ”

Even through her stress, Lux can’t help but laugh a little at the sound of Ezreal’s voice. She shouldn’t be surprised he found her, she’s always in this park, with it’s wide open view of the sky and winding lamp-lit trail. It’s not the first time he’s met her here, not even the first time in the middle of the night. But…

Lux turns to him just as he sits down beside her, casually slouching in his joggers and wagging a handkerchief at her. “Why do you always show up when I’m crying?” she laughs gently, accepting it to wipe her face.

“It’s like a clarion call when stars cry,” Ezreal says with a wink and Lux can’t actually tell if he’s joking or not. He nudges her. “What’s the deal?” he asks, even though he already surely knows.

Lux has been trying _so hard_ to get her team to work together, but they aren’t syncing up right. Ahri always seems so perfectly in place, her team always seems to know what to do the second she even _looks_ at them. While Lux and the others bumble around and fight _each other_ nearly as much as they fight the rift monsters. It’s frustrating for everyone and for Lux, at least, bordering on panic-inducing. She doesn’t use those exact words, but Ezreal knows this, because she’s told this story before, pacing just as she is now. She can’t stop herself until she looks up and sees the familiar sympathetic smirk on his face.

She comes back to his side to sit with a dramatic groan, “This is a _disaster_ ,” she says, head in her hands. “How does your team work so well together?” Their team has been together longer but it _has_ to be more than that.

For a moment, Ezreal seems to think on that but then he just shrugs. “We’re not friends.”

The answer is quite straight forward, but confuses her. She still distinctly remembers Miss Fortune looking like murder personified when Lux – _not her friend, not even a little_ – had called her by her first name. “But Miss Fortune said—”

“Sarah calls anyone who she doesn’t hate her friend. It’s a short list,” Ezreal says, smiling but there is a bit of sadness in his eyes. “It’s not about being friends. It’s not even really about _trusting_ each other, just trusting our abilities. That’s it.”

Lux is a startled by how neutral he sounds about that, the same cool darkness of Ahri’s tone when she’d told Lux they were all just strangers. It’s a bit of a surprise to hear it from Ezreal. She shakes her head, a little horrified. “But I _love_ my team.”

Ezreal eyes her. “Ok,” he says, like that’s odd and she flushes, a little annoyed. “ _Ok._ That’s… I would say that’s all well and good, but, well…” he taps the hand that clenched around his handkerchief, “It doesn’t seem to be working out.”

That’s a low blow, but also—“Ez, that’s so sad,” she says, “Do you really think you can avoid _loving?_ ”

The smile on his face says is carefully vacant, so much so that Lux immediately feels bad for making him think of whatever he’s hiding. Star Guardians don’t get a lot of attachments, she knows that, but that’s where their teams come in, isn’t it? That’s the family they get to build in place of the things they’ve lost.

“We have a bigger mission that that, don’t we?” Ezreal replies eventually, he throws his arms out wide smiling up at the sky. “Exploring all the corners of the universe, even the darkest ones, and spreading light. Love isn’t really in those cards.”

If he looks a little longing at that, Lux is probably imagining it. She looks away from him, warmed and determined where she expected to feel resignation. “We do have a bigger mission, I understand that and I’m not going to shy from what the First Star chose us to do, but… _Ezreal_ ,” she looks back at him in genuine confusion, “Do you really think love is all that different from light?” She turns to face him more directly, “The Light that binds guardians together… It’s almost like the love that binds families together.”

“Families,” he repeats flatly.

Lux shrugs, sheepishly. It’s not a perfect analogy. “Well, sort of, yeah!”

There’s another long pause in which she thinks Ezreal isn’t going to grace her with a response, but then he’s shaking his head, laughing. It’s not a cruel or dismissive sound, not like he’s making fun of her, but more like he’s challenging her.

 “Whatever, Starlight,” he replies, kissing her fingers as he stands. Then adds on, like he genuinely means it, “Prove me wrong.” But the laugh that follows is a little more teasing, “Show me _the power of friendship and love_.”

It’s just annoying enough that it’s the right thing to say, it’s a challenge, a _dare_. It lights a fire under her, dries up the last of her tears with the heat of it. Lux is extremely grateful to him for being able to find those moments so effortlessly, but she isn’t _wrong_ and he’s going to admit that one day. “Fine!” she snatches her hand away making him laugh again, “I will!”

There’s something missing in their team, but it isn’t love, it’s…huh.

_…Huh!_

Well, there’s nothing genuine or loving about being _forced_ together, is there? The First Star put them together for a reason, yes, but this would never work unless _they_ chose each other, too. Lux feels herself brightening with realization; she would never try to become friends with someone just because she felt it was her _duty_ , there is more to friendships than that. They needed more than just an abstract mission to tie them together cohesively.

“Starlight, star bright, she thinks she’s figured it out,” Ezreal smiles, backing away, “I can’t _wait_ to see _this_ …”

Lux sticks her tongue out at his teasing, standing up as well, newly motivated.

To be truthful, she can’t wait to see this either.

//

It isn’t quite like surveillance, Lux tells herself, she’s just paying more attention than usual.

Honestly, it’s a little refreshing to remember that she is still a human girl in a house with other human girls, all of whom have hobbies besides the fastest way to kill a monster and plug the hole it came out of. There are things she knows about her team that she’s never paid much mind to other than accepting them as a part of their personalities. But the next few days, she makes herself take note – literally – of what her teammates do with their free time and starts planning. She wants them all to come together, their individual hobbies and likes overlapping into activities they can all participate in.

When she notices Janna one afternoon, curled up away from the others in the window seat reading, she pauses. It’s not a very big space, not for someone adult sized, but as far as the house goes, there isn’t a whole lot of room for quiet with four other people running around the place. It’s not hard for Lux to understand Janna is a person who appreciates moments of peace and quiet, or at least one of the two for more than a few moments at a time.

Now, Lux isn’t sure she can enforce a quiet hour. In fact, she’s pretty sure that would be an uphill battle to somewhere she doesn’t even want them to go. No need to aim for things that weren’t going to be particularly helpful on top of being difficult. So a middle ground, then.

Lux watches Janna turn the page and is struck with an idea.

Surely, a book club should be easy enough, right?

//

The book club is a disaster.

It had seemed so _easy_ when Lux had sat down to make notes in her _Big Team Togetherness Journal_. Janna likes reading and Janna is the eldest. Even Jinx is occasionally willing to defer to her seniority when she isn’t feeling particularly cantankerous. It had seemed like the best way to kick off their new bonding journey, something simple and easily spontaneous. She knows it might _sound_ sort of boring, but once they got into the swing of it, Lux could already imagine them having spirited discussions about far off lands and interesting people. So she doesn’t mention what they’re doing, just promises to buy hot cocoa once they get there.

That was probably the first mistake.

Simply planning a time to go was clearly not enough planning, because they spend so long in the bookstore, fighting about what to read that people are staring. Lux starts to panic.

“Ok!!” she exclaims, raising her hands when Poppy and Jinx look like they’re getting close to squaring up over the merits of history books over comics. “Ok, just—” _think fast, Lux, this is about sharing right?_ “—pick the book you want to fight for.”

“We’re fighting with books?” Jinx says, grinning.

“No,” Lux answer sharply, ignoring her groaning. “We’re each going to pick a book to read and then explain to the group why it’s so great!” Thinking on her feet has never been her strong suit, she’s always been clumsy. So suffice to say she feels pretty good for spitting out that plan like she actually planned it. She jostles when Jinx groans, leaning on her shoulder.

“Luuuuux, that sounds boring,” she complains.

Poppy still looks annoyed. “And useless.”

Lux folds her arms. “Only of you pick bad books!”

Janna lets out a soft laugh and Lulu tugs on Lux’s shirt. “I want an art book,” she says agreeably, “I can explain why those are better than whatever boring books _they’re_ picking.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to pick, Pipsqueak!”

“You just said something boring,” Lulu replies neutrally and Lux loves her. She’s not as easily motivated by challenges as Jinx is, but, well, no harm in playing into it if it works.

They split up, Jinx and Poppy trash-talking the whole time while Janna looks Lux over knowingly before wandering into the mythology section. Lux hadn’t actually thought about what book she wanted, so she finds herself in a bit of a flurry trying to find something by the time the others are done. The book of the month is a schmaltzy romance story that Lux is a little embarrassed to admit looks exactly like the sort of thing she would read with wide eyed suspense. She decides she doesn’t have time for self-imposed shame and snags it.

It takes some wrangling to track down everyone in the store and some finagling to get them to read all in one room once they get home. It’s not actually usual for them to just be in the den together, but this is a good opportunity. She drags Jinx down onto the couch next to her and turns her best ‘please’ eyes towards Poppy. It doesn’t appear to be working until Lulu spreads out on the floor, pointedly leaving the arm chair open as Janna sits on the sofa beside Lux. It could go either way, prodding Poppy like this, but today Poppy just huffs.

“Bought the damn thing, may as well read it,” she grumbles, jumping up into the chair.

For the mess this whole thing started with, the outcome is better than expected. She’s ecstatic when she leans back on the couch, even when – _especially when?_ – Jinx sighs dramatically and tosses her legs over Lux’s lap as she opens her manga. Lux settles under the comfortable weight, unsure if Jinx did it to be difficult or not, and starts her book.

She makes it two chapters before she nods off.

Lux startles awake with a flash of guilt, but the first thing she sees is Janna smiling without looking up from her book, raising a finger. Lux blinks, looking around.

Lulu is sitting in front of Janna on the floor, several pages into her new sketchbook, happily doodling fantastical creatures and plants. Poppy is now lounging deep in the arm chair with her brow furrowed over “ _The History of Intra-City Warfare_ ” – a book that probably has an unfortunate amount of stories directly related to Jinx.

Speaking of which, she realizes then that the reason she’d startled awake in the first place was Jinx snuffling in her sleep. Half her shoulder is trapped under Lux’s from where she’d slumped against her to get comfortable. Jinx had either been asleep herself when this happened or was just feeling kind enough to put her arm on Lux’s side and not bother her any further. Lux can’t quite explain why that makes her face go pink with happiness, the light in her chest fluttering weirdly, but she takes it to be a good thing.

Even when Janna teasingly presses her foot against Lux’s thigh, before curling her legs under herself and focusing on “ _The Evolution of Sea Deities and Their Worshipers_.”

Lux watches her for a moment before she whispers, “Can I read it when you’re done?”

Janna’s smile doesn’t change, but she does glance up then and a little wisp of wind knocks some of Lux’s hair into her face. “If you tell me how your book ends,” she replies gently. “Go back to sleep.”

Lux considers fighting it, sitting up to actually do the reading she was supposed to be doing, but… this is still togetherness, in it’s own way. Sharing a space even if they aren’t sharing activities is more than they usually do. She likes where they are right now. So she sets her book aside, it will be there later, and settles back against Jinx. And besides, napping is one of her favorite pastimes.

Later that night, after dinner – and a debate about “The Blood Moon Riots” that Jinx claims _no_ association with, no sirrie – Lux has just finished up the dishes when Janna snags her before she can get to her bedroom. Before she can even form a question, she’s being hugged tightly, Janna’s cheek pressed against her head.

It’s not exactly unheard of, getting hugs, but it’s been a while since she’s gotten one that feels so genuine. Lux doesn’t realize she’s waiting for Janna to say something until she’s already speaking quietly over Lux’s shoulder. “I believe it’s about time I followed someone who cares about where we fall when we _aren’t_ stars, too.”

Lux almost lets her insecurity ask if that’s what a good leader does, but decides for herself that it is. They aren’t just warriors, they aren’t just a team. They’re teenagers going through the hardest challenge of their lives. She hugs Janna back and just nods, because of course she cares.

And tonight, she goes to bed feeling like they’re all finally starting to fall in the right direction.

//

In a lot of ways, Poppy is easier.

They may get to live like civilians most days, but they never forget they are here as a part of a bigger mission. They have to train to be ready for what the First Star has sent them to do and Poppy _likes_ training, rarely does anything else with her free time.

She does take training just a _wee bit_ seriously though.

“Nothing out there is going to be merciful,” Poppy says shortly and Lux might’ve flushed with offence had she not already been red – probably turning purple in some places – from the exertion of the fight. This wasn’t supposed to be the point of this exercise. “You’re going to have to _pick it up_ or—”

“The goal isn’t to hurt _each other_ , Poppy,” Lux defends, stunning her with a beam of light long enough to flash away. Her skin is tingling with the exertion of magic she’s had to use today, Poppy isn’t pulling punches on anyone.

“ _Aw,_ but hurting people is _fun!_ ” Jinx whines and Lux doesn’t have time to glare at her, carefully threading the needle between her chompers as Janna skids to a stop just short of them.

“If I _don’t_ someone else _will_ ,” Poppy says ducking away from one of Jinx’s smaller rockets, eyes hard.  “You can’t avoid the fight forever, Lux.”

Lux grits her teeth and tosses Jinx a shield just before Poppy sends _both_ she and Lulu flying backwards with a truly painful looking blow.

Lulu tumbles as Pix swoops in to shield her, but Jinx lands upright, the impact sending dust flurries up around her feet. It’s something about the blood on her lips that makes Lux, well… fear or concern would be the natural response, and it is _there_ , but that’s not all. Jinx is always gunfire and blood, so seeing it now, Lux is overtaken with an almost giddy sort of confidence. Especially when a sinister smirk stretches across her busted lip.

“Yeah, but you’re counting wrong!” Lux yells at Poppy, sprinting out of the way when Lulu suddenly grows three times her size, ground shaking under them as she lumbers forward only to be blown back by Janna. “We’d never be _against_ each other!”

Poppy pauses then, only a fraction of a second, an odd look flickering across her face, but it’s a pause just long enough for Jinx to zap her so she staggers. Lux doesn’t think before tossing a bind on her, stepping forward to raise an ignited palm.

She’d never touch her with it, of course. Poppy knows that, doesn’t even glance at it even as the orange glows across her face, fire crackling in her ears.

Poppy has felt an ignited palm before. “One day you might have to fight a star,” is all she says.

Lux tries not to let her face change even as her chest constricts.

Though not as old as Janna, Lux knows Poppy has been on other teams before theirs. It hits her that Poppy’s abhorrence of anything less than absolute respect and faith in the First Star’s mission is very likely not just a matter of honor. There is no doubt from the hard look on Poppy’s face that she is speaking from experience.

Lux wonders what it’s like to stare into a black hole knowing who it used to be. She doesn’t want to ever find out. That’s not the destiny written out for them, she believes that from the bottom of her heart.

Extinguishing her palm, gratefully, she shakes out her hand. “Not you, I won’t,” she says softly. “It wouldn’t be anything like fighting you.”

Poppy presses her lips together, her fang disappearing for a moment and Lux hears the words she doesn’t say. Has to fight back the silly urge to shift protectively in front of Jinx. It’s _silly,_ because Jinx of all people doesn’t _need_ her protection because she is _not_ a traitor, so Poppy won’t hurt her and neither will Lux.

“ _Any of you_ ,” Lux adds firmly. Janna is at her shoulder now and Lulu is lazily watching Pix bob up and down, chittering excitedly, but Lux knows she can listen to both of them at the same time. “I think we should train differently.”

“How? _Knitting?_ ” Poppy almost sneers.

So Lux’s attempt at bonding was not subtle, whatever, it’s _working_. She just crosses her arms, chin high. “If that’s what you want.”

Jinx slides closer. “ _Ooh_ , I know what! Let’s pick some _real_ fights. I know this gang that—”

“No,” Lux cuts in, echoed by three other voices, “but you have a point. We should work on fighting _with_ each other.”

“Against _whooo?_ ” Jinx insists.

“Against _nobody_ until we’re sure we can do it right,” Lux says, then her eyes light up in thought. “Poppy, have you ever _built_ anything with that hammer?”

//

The practice dummies are ugly, but they’re pretty damn tanky, too. Poppy makes sure of that.

It takes a few tries because, she hasn’t ever attempted to build anything. But even when she can’t just hammer away the problem, she finds she likes working on the dummies. They only break into large, reparable pieces when hit at full strength, thanks to Lulu and Janna infusing them with magic.

“We’d make a killing selling these!” Jinx exclaims after excitedly shooting the latest model for hours.

Poppy’s mouth twists a little, because that isn’t why she made them, but she can’t quite keep the pride out of her eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

They’ve fought together before, obviously, but those battles had been fought haphazardly, narrowly avoiding friendly fire. Now, Poppy looks over to find Lux glowing with joy and can’t even find it in her to roll her eyes. It’s annoying to admit, but it does feel like it’s working. Poppy feels just shy of unstoppable, feels like they might just be some sort of functioning team. When she lets her hammer fall at the end of the day and turns to give them a sharp grin, it feels like they’ve won more than a practice match against a bunch of dummies.

Lulu and Jinx crash into Lux, a sweaty and uncontrolled hug. Poppy shakes her head when their laughter turns to shrieking when Janna’s wind whistles around them, twirling them. When Janna’s gaze falls on Poppy, she raises her brows a bit, mostly amused, though Poppy knows the other part of that look.

No, she’s not as seasoned as Janna in this mission, but she’s been around. She’s seen things go bad, she’s seen things and _stars_ go bad faster than she could keep track of _._ She doesn’t ever hope for better, because hope will never get you as far as working for it will. And her team is (mostly) working for it, she knows that. She’s just trying to wrap her head around not working _all the time_ , when the darkness is always falling towards them, but… she can let them laugh. She can laugh with _them_ , sometimes; when the moment truly calls for it, they can joke.

And ok, she acknowledges that using her hammer to launch them into the air might’ve been a bit far, but whatever.

She’s trying.

//

Lulu is a little complicated in the simplicity of her pleasures: she really likes getting lost.

She calls it wandering, but Lux fails to see the difference.

Lux can’t really deny she can be quite clumsy herself, but of all the things that personality trait has led her to, being lost has never been her favorite. But it isn’t like they can _really_ get lost, they—or, well, at the very least _Janna_ can read just about any star over her head like a map. They haven’t wound up anywhere from which Janna couldn’t navigate them safely home. There isn’t really any more risk in this than anything else they might do. That, plus the idea that they could find a new place to practice their magics in private makes her resign herself to a day of following Lulu’s whimsy.

Assuming she didn’t pick something else to do, anyway, but Lux thinks she knows where this is going when she knocks on the door to her room. “Lulu?” When Lulu looks up from her drawing, Lux wonders if there are any free art classes around and if Lulu would have the attention span to sit through one. 

“Are we bonding again?” she asks, lowering her crayon.

Lux flushes, but stands upright. “Do you not want to?” she asks completely neutrally like the young leader she is.

She thinks Pix laughs at her.

Lulu just smiles. “My choice?”

Lux nods. “Sure, if you want to pick.” She doesn’t think Lulu would actually lead them to the fae realm. She isn’t overly concerned.

Still, after an hour on a bus, when they’re an hour _a half_ into a hike she only very narrowly convinced Jinx to participate in – and during which Lulu has hardly spoken at all – she does get a _little_ worried.

Jinx breaks first. “Where are we even _gooooing?_ ”

“We’re getting lost,” Lulu answers.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Poppy grumbles, looking over at Lux who _may_ have said some only-probably-true things about a new training area.

Lulu tips her head back, pouting. “We’re almost there,” she mumbles a bit petulantly.

“To ‘ _lost’?_ ” Janna asks.

“Yep!” Lulu says, then suddenly Pix darts away from her and she runs after him. “Right over there!”

Before Lux can even begin to say wait, she has to start jogging to catch up with the rest of the team. She breaks through a tree line and stops short when she comes up on an abrupt drop off. It’s a short cliff, straight down into the green-brown stretch of a lazily flowing river.

“How deep is it?” Jinx asks and Lux realizes why the split second after Lulu grins at her and they shuck their shorts.

“ _Wait!_ ”

Jinx grabs Lulu and leaps off, going screaming towards the water below. Lux reaches the edge just in time to see them both breach the surface, gasping and shrieking with laughter. “ _Slow poookes!_ ”

The three left up top glance at each other, Janna shrugging with an amused breath. She is a little more graceful in her descent, aided by her winds, but she does join them, swimming serenely on her back. Lux thinks Poppy might kick up a fuss, but when she meets Lux’s eyes, whatever she sees in her face just makes her sigh. She starts stripping and Lux is grinning, manages to rid herself of her over clothes and plug her nose, diving in right behind Poppy.

There’s a certain lightness to playing that Lux had almost forgotten about, but now loses herself in for hours. They splash and scream, push each other and laugh and collect smooth river rocks. Poppy and Jinx get into a rock skipping contest when they wind up sitting on the shore, Lux absently braiding Lulu’s hair as she dozes with her head against Lux’s knee. Janna is watching the sky like it’s easy today, like they’ve made it easy.

The sun is setting in the sky by the time they reach home, tired and still a little damp.

Lux showers last and when she comes back into the main area, she pauses in the doorway, struck.

Poppy is cooking and Janna is absently twirling the wind chime in the window. Jinx and Lulu are playing a slightly morbid game of exquisite corpse at the kitchen island.

Lux looks around at her team, her _family_ and feels full to bursting. When Jinx calls her over, she finds herself yanked to sit pressed hip to shoulder on her bar stool with Jinx. She could move over, there’s another open seat. She finds she doesn’t want the open seat, she wants to be exactly as close to Jinx as she is.

She sits there as Jinx shows off all of the truly gruesome ways she’s turned the tail end of Lulu’s woodland creatures into weapons, Lux can’t help but laugh. The game expands to include her and the discussion that passes over them is familiar even though something in the air between them has clearly changed.

Jinx and Poppy are still going tit-for-tat and Janna is still looking somewhere as far away as Lulu had once wandered. But the distance between them tonight doesn’t feel nearly as far as it has some days. Jinx is warm and animated against Lux’s side and she can feel Janna’s presence at the window behind her like a warm breeze on a cool night. Lulu is smiling, not in the far off way of someone who’s seen more of the world than most people know exist, but in a sweet, tickled sort of way. She’s giggling less like she’s seen the turn of the century and more like a teenaged girl having dinner with her sisters.

It won’t be like this every night, Lux reminds herself firmly, it _can’t_ be, but—

Poppy is shoving a spoon at her to taste her chili and Janna’s shaking her head over Jinx’s shoulder at whatever she’s drawing behind her arm and Lulu is laughing brightly, her hand on Lux’s arm as she talks excitedly about the things she’s seen in the fairy woods and just…

Love, like light, is never a mistake.

Some nights it _will_ be like this.

//

Janna can sense things when they come in on the wind.

Before she goes to bed, she wanders the halls like the eldest members of houses often do, and feels for her little sisters. She feels the wind creeping in one’s cracked window, the turning of another’s creaky ceiling fan, the soft rumble of one’s breathing, the sigh of a mattress as the last falls onto it. These winds, she breathes, and feels better just for how easy they’re resting tonight. Their starlight is not fragile, but it is a soft glow – embers, still warm in a fire place, in the grill, waiting to spark something bigger. She can tell something bigger is coming, she can.

Janna is old, older than her face betrays unless you look in her eyes the right way. She’s old and has seen a great many horrible, wonderful, haunting things. She’s watched teams fall apart and sees it again and again behind her eyes more often than she’d like. She’s old. But sometimes she doesn’t feel it though.

Sometimes, like tonight, at least, her sisters and their bright, untarnished light, the gentle wind of their breaths, is all she dreams about.

//

As is usually the case, the game changes when something blows up.

As is usually the case when something blows up, Jinx is the one who threw the switch.

//

They live in the same house, so it’s more than a little ridiculous for Jinx to come diving through Lux’s bedroom window in the middle of the night. Lux nearly knocks her homework off her desk jumping at the intrusion. “ _Jinx!_ ”

“I know you’re a square, so give me some props for waiting ‘til Friday,” Jinx says then squints at her desk, “Dude, are you doing homework on a Friday, you _are_ a square.”

Lux is floundering to keep up. “Waited ‘til Friday to…?” she blinks and realizes Jinx has got on clothes she’s never even seen before. Her boots are strapped and the same dark leather as her jacket and collar, all splattered with flecks of dayglow green paint. She’s wearing her driving gloves. “ _No_ ,” Lux says, but Jinx’s face is already lit up.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” she says walking over and _actually_ knocking Lux’s homework off her desk so she can sit on it and grin down at her. “You’ve been doing all this teambuilding, let’s-do-what-you-like crap for months now. It’s _my_ turn.”

Lux’s instinctual Jinx-specific nervousness kicks in, but it’s buzzing and bright in her chest, an almost welcome feeling. She should say no. “But…”

“ _One_ race. Out of the city limits. And I didn’t even steal the bike,” Jinx sings, dancing in place, “I got it from a junker who owed me a favor.”

… _Lux should say no_ , but Jinx looks happy-manic, a look Lux loves dearly but rarely gets to witness when there’s no violence involved. In fact, she’d forgotten how different it is from the sharp smirk of a trigger-happy munitions expert, Jinx is just _smiling_. At _her_.

Lux looks down at her pajamas, pink and purple plaid with poros on the shirt, then back to Jinx’s sleek leather. “What would I even wear?” she tries weakly. Judging by the way Jinx’s smile only broadens, it’s not a very good defense.

“Starlight,” Jinx grins and Ezreal’s nickname sounds unusually sweet on Jinx’s tongue. Lux flashes warm. “I gotcha covered! Pun intended!”

//

Lux doesn’t wear a lot of dark colors, but even she must admit, she can appreciate the way she looks in midnight blue.

The hood tugged up over her head makes her feel a little conspicuous – which is ridiculous considering she has bright pink hair – but she stays still and lets Jinx tug it up over her head agreeably. She always goes a little still when Jinx smiles at her like that.

“You look almost like you _might_ know a criminal!” Jinx exclaims, cackling when Lux swats at her arm.

Sprinting to the garage through the dark makes Lux’s nerves stand on end, but it’s a guilty sort of thrill, too. But Jinx is chattering excitedly, as close to a whisper as she ever really gets, dragging her along by the hand and the thrill isn’t nearly as guilty. Lux thinks better of asking where Jinx even got the key to this place, following her inside.

The bike is a beast, a huge grey and black clunker that seems almost alive, _ROADHOG_ emblazoned across the tailpipe. It coughs and roars to life the moment Jinx twists the key. When Lux tosses her leg over, it _does_ feel a bit like she’s straddling a wild boar.

Fitting for Jinx, she thinks. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that should obey any speed limits as Jinx takes them to the outskirts of the city. She’s surprised she recognizes the drivers gathered there when Jinx skids to a stop. The most surprising, though, is Ezreal.

To be fair, Ezreal is more than a little surprised to see her, too, judging by the look on his face when he pulls his helmet off. “Starlight!” he exclaims, happy to see her nevertheless.

Ekko – who she only recognizes from seeing him with Jinx when she’s skipping class – sizes her up. “She seems new,” is all he says, but Lux gets the feeling ‘new’ encapsulates a lot.

Jinx rolls her eyes at him. “She’s _mine_ ,” is all she replies, but it feels like that encapsulates a lot as well.

Judging by the grin that lights up Ezreal’s face, it must. “Good enough for me,” he gets on the back of his sleek blue bike, winking at her. “Good luck, Starlight.”

“Hey, I’m driving!” Jinx exclaims, plopping Lux’s helmet back on.

“That’s why she needs the luck, BB,” he replies, Ekko chuckling beside him.

Lux blinks between the two of them. “BB?”

Jinx grins even before Ezreal answers, “Biggest Bang,” with a smirk before pulling his helmet down over his face.

“Rules?” Lux asks a little hysterically, clutching Jinx’s clothes.

Ekko laughs, but it sounds like genuine amusement, not malice. “No guns unless you get caught,” he puts on his helmet, solid black with a white hourglass over his face. “Don’t get caught.”

“First ‘round the city wins! _Gentlemeeeen!! Start! Your! Engines!_ ” Jinx screams.

Ekko’s bike glows with a humming sea-green light when he turns it on and Ezreal’s purrs, but neither of them sound like much under Jinx’s monster. Ekko tosses up a trinket that blinks down – _red, red, yellow, **green** – _ and the bikes spring forward and steal the breath from Lux’s lungs. It’s terrifying at first, how fast they’re going, how close they are to each other, to the _ground_ on the turns, but then the road opens up and it feels like _flying._ She never quite understood Jinx’s tendency towards racing until now, arms around her and eyes on the horizon. Their hearts are pounding as they strain to close the narrow distance between them and Ekko, in first place.

Lux tenses as if it’ll make them go faster when she sees Ezreal creeping up in the corner of her vision. “Jinx!” she exclaims, but Jinx doesn’t even look over. She nudges something with her knee, starts flipping switches on the dash.

“Hold onto me, _brace for it!!_ ” Jinx screams and Lux’s blood goes cold.

“Brace for—?” she doesn’t even get the question all the way out before Jinx kicks out and the bottom of the bike ignites under their feet. Lux yelps in shock, tightening her arms around Jinx a moment before they get launched into the air.

Lux is screaming as Jinx whoops joyously.

The core of the bike is a rocket. Of course, it is.

Suddenly, the feeling of flying is literal as they blast off, flying well past Ekko into the lead. Jinx pops a parachute the second they pass Ekko’s trinket, still glowing on the ground, and the sensation of the sudden stop flips Lux’s stomach as it jerks them off the seat, lifted into the air. As soon as it registers that she’s not going to explode on a probably hastily-made, rocket-boosted monstrosity she starts laughing.

Yes, partly because it’s funny, but also because that was the biggest non-rift-monster related risk she’s ever taken and it was terrifying, but she _loved it._ They’ve skidded to a stop on the ground now, but she’s clinging to Jinx, half hunched over with residual panicked laughter. Jinx holds her up under one arm and when Lux looks up, Jinx is bright with mirth and chaos, cackling.

…And Lux isn’t thinking.

That’s not something a leader should ever say, she knows that, but suddenly she isn’t. She touches Jinx’s face like she knows it’s fragile and she still can’t keep her fingers off it. Jinx stops laughing instantly, confused, and Lux feels much the same.

They’re very close and Jinx’s eyes are bright and coppery and Lux hasn’t… she hadn’t ever really _thought_ about kissing her, but the wonder she feels at the thought is just that – _wonder_. She wonders if Jinx would let her, what it would feel like, what her lipstick tastes like, if it would mean as much as the pounding in her chest implies it would.

But then Ekko’s bike is humming up behind them and Jinx’s face twists. She puts her down and steps back.

Lux flushes, startled. “Jinx…”

“ _Woo!_ ” Jinx screams without looking at her, turning to face the guys as they pull up. “Having someone to fling magic toys around must be fun, huh, Ekko?”

“Cheater,” Ezreal says when Ekko just sneers at her.

“I didn’t use a single gun! Those were the only rules!”

They’re shit talking and Lux can hardly get in edgewise, even when Ezreal tosses an arm around her shoulder, jokes about her getting on her own bike. Jinx steamrolls the conversation to an alarmingly solid _no._ And she’s not wrong, but something about the implication that Lux is no longer invited to something Jinx loves scares the _living daylights out of her._

“Jinx,” Lux tries again, more insistently when they’re alone and heading back to the house. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong now.

“Come on!” Jinx says, too enthusiastically, “Janna and Short Stack should be back from that fancy-ass cooking class. Maybe they flame broiled something, maybe they’ll let _me_ flame broil something.” She doesn’t look back as she says this.

In fact, Jinx doesn’t look at her all through their late dinner or before she bounds up the stairs and slams the door to her room.

Lux feels cold inside.

Stars aren’t meant to burn cold.

//

Lux and Ezreal fight.

It is always good, it is a _very_ good way to let off steam and Lux could really use it. Right now, there’s so much steam in the house it feels like a pressure cooker about to bust even when nobody’s inside. Whatever has changed between her and Jinx is cooking everyone, but Lux is too twisted up inside to know what _has_ changed exactly, let alone how to fix it.

And so here she is, dripping with sweat and sore to the bones, stopping just a hair’s breadth from Ezreal’s ignited palm. He’s panting, holding his stance firm even as his brow quirks at her. “You’re about to kick my ass distracted,” he says with a bit of a pout, “My pretty face not enough today?”

Lux lets out a breathless laugh. “I didn’t come to whine to you,” she says, but before she can raise her hand to cast a spell, his palm flashes out and he curls it, fireside warm, around her wrist.

“Lux,” he says with a smirk that she’s come to understand is his approximation of a patient face, “You’re very pretty, but if I didn’t like listening to you, I wouldn’t hang around.” She feels herself go pink and his smile softens. “Is this about the race?”

Of course, he noticed. Lux should stop letting herself forget he’s pretty and perhaps a bit impulsive, but he’s also stunningly smart behind it all.

“It was _working_ ,” is the first thing she says when they sit down, because it _was_. Weeks on weeks of hanging out and training together and talking about books, _being_ together has made them a stronger team. There haven’t been any botched incidents in _months_. Until Lux looked up at Jinx and saw her _now, right then, in that moment_ and didn’t mourn for the smiling little girl she used to be. She saw Jinx and the fragility of her happiness and thought how badly she wanted to stay a part of it and wanted to be as bright for Jinx as she was for Lux and—

“You fell in love, didn’t you?” Ezreal asks softly, eyes on the ground, and Lux reels back from him, shocked.

“ _What?_ No, I— _No,_ that’s…” Lux can’t even complete that sentence, can’t even complete the _thought_.

She hadn’t gone into this trying to fall in love, not in any other way than as a unit, a family lead together in the light of the First Star. And she _does_ love them, she loves them so much she could burst with it, but with Jinx… It’s love, why wouldn’t it be? But it’s different than any other love she’s ever felt, different than what she feels for the others. It _hurts_ because she can feel that the night she looked at Jinx like she hung the sun was too much, _entirely_ too much and she broke it. She’s losing it.

“I’m…” Before she can even get it in her head to steel herself, to not cry in front of him yet again, tears are streaking down her face, her breath quiet and shivery.

Ezreal takes a sharp breath, lets it out on her name, “Lux…” he starts, reaching for her.

She wraps her arms around herself. “Don’t rub my nose in it,” she gasps, “I know, I _know_ I messed up, I ruined _everything_.”

“Well, that’s not what I was going to do,” he says, shifting closer to her, one arm braced behind her back and the other fishing out his handkerchief. “It may have been an accident, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a mistake.”

“Those are synonyms,” Lux points out sulkily, wiping her face.

“Sort of, but just because you didn’t do it on purpose doesn’t mean it’s bad,” he winces a little, “Even if it’s complicated. Jinx is…” he smiles like he’s embarrassed, “She’s not as dislikeable as she likes to think she is. And you _really_ know her, of course you love her.”

Lux is surprised by that admission, but still looks at him sidelong. “You’re the one that said loving your teammates was a mistake.”

Ezreal shrugs. “Guess I’m learning from you,” he says cryptically, “and anyway, anything _you_ love could never be a mistake. You just gotta figure out what to do with it.”

“Just like that,” Lux asks flatly, stunned by his sudden faith in her ability to not royally screw up something he’d warned her against in the first place.

Ezreal’s smile is sweetly confident in her. “Just like that,” She blinks, startled when he leans forward and kisses her cheek. “You’re good at thinking on your feet, Starlight, you got this.”

Though she’s normally – and even still now – encouraged by Ezreal’s easy manner that makes it seem like everything is alright, she only narrowly avoids pointing out that she _barely_ managed to get the team to a good place after _dozens_ of screw ups. They’re doing better, yes, but it’s still a newly establish balance, easily thrown off and lost.

And to top it off, she’s in love.

Great.

Just great.

//

It sits wrong on them, all of them.

The way they’d finally managed to fit themselves together, all those months of effort, are beginning to feel all crooked. Lux is desperate to get things back together and, of all things, Lux _hates_ feeling desperate.

“Jinx, come on…” she says – maybe _begs_ – the third time she misses the timing after Poppy knocks a monster into the air for her and just sprays bullets across the area,  sending dirt and monster goo flying everywhere before turning on the shrubbery. She says it because she can see something scathing held back behind Poppy’s clenched teeth and Lulu has been hearing something that’s making her shoulders hunch and Janna is staring off at the horizon like a different storm is brewing.

She says it because this is her fault in the first place.

Jinx’s hackles are up immediately. “Come on, _what?_ ” Lux doesn’t want to fight her, not like this, but Jinx’s knuckles are white on her guns and her eyes are livid bright. “You gonna give me a speech about how I should respect the _light_ the First Fucking Star _shat_ in me, too?”

“Jinx!!” Lux exclaims scandalized, anxiously feeling Poppy’s rage spike.

 “Watch your mouth,” Poppy snaps. “You could at least act like—” she breaks off, bearing her teeth when Jinx stomps over to get in her face.

“Like I haven’t had an original thought in decades?” Jinx exclaims, “Do you _ever_ unclench?”

Poppy looks fit to knock her over the head. “We’re _Star Guardians_ ,” she hisses through gritted teeth, “You could at least _pretend_ like you understand what it means to _be something._ ”

Lux sees the fight sliding away from the issue at hand faster than she can make a grab for it. “Guys…”

“Something other than a Zaunite gutter dweller, is that it?” Jinx bites back. This rarely comes up, but when it does it _blows_ up fast.

“That’s not what she’s saying,” Lux interjects, “Jinx, it’s not an _image_ we’re trying to uphold, it’s…” she flounders, hearing how unconvincing it sounds before it’s even out of her mouth, “we’re trying to uphold _light._ ”

That has the opposite effect of what Lux was aiming for, Jinx’s face twisting furiously. “Oh well, I’m sorry I’m not _light_ and _ass-kissing goodness_ , I’m _sorry_ I’m not the kind little…”

Lux shakes her head. “I don’t— _we_ don’t need that! The First Star put us together for a reason, we don’t _need_ you different.”

Lulu shifts, an anxious hum coming from her, but Lux honestly couldn’t tell if Lulu made the sound or not. She’s lifted a hand to her head. “The First Star wouldn’t have chosen you for this if you weren’t right.”

Jinx sneers. “So what? I wouldn’t have chosen this for me if I’d had a _choice!_ ” She laughs then, a caustic sound and Lux feels a frightening flash like the little girls they’d been together were never even real. “You know what? I _do_ have a choice!” the guns pop away into Kuro and Shiro, before they faze into her gauntlets, “We’re done!”

Poppy grips her hammer tighter. “You can’t—” she starts, but Jinx is already stomping away.

Lux doesn’t realize the only reason she stops is because she unconsciously shot out a panicked hand to grab her by the wrist. Once she realizes she’s doing it, though, she doesn’t take it back, can’t imagine letting go willingly.

“Jinx…” she starts, waiting for Jinx’s eyes, surprised when she actually half turns to face her. “We were _born_ together,” Lux whispers quaveringly and it sounds so loving and desperate, it scalds.

Jinx snatches her hand away, the scowl on her face obvious but not the pain in her eyes before she turns around to storm off. “You’re breaking my heart, Lux,” she spits savagely, “I know where the hell I was born.”

“Jinx, _please_.”

Watching Jinx’s back retreat hurts Lux in a way she’s never felt before. Poppy is glaring, which is bad, but Lulu and Janna just look vacantly sad which is worse.

Lux’s eyes are brimming, so she doesn’t turn to face them, can’t let them see her so close to losing it. “This isn’t…”

“We’ll pick up the slack,” Poppy says and Lux can hear the hard frown on her face as she turns to stomp the other way. “We should’ve been practicing without her anyway.”

//

Lulu comes to Lux’s room later that night and Lux is immediately grateful for it. Jinx is just one of them, but somehow the house feels horrendously empty without her clanking around in her room.

“The First Star says you didn’t do anything wrong and not to worry,” Lulu starts without preamble.

Lux shuts her eyes and lets out a frustrated breath. She’s not going to start crying again, she’s done, she’s tired. Her eyes don’t listen to her. “But it’s my _fault_.” She looks down, startled, when Pix floats into her hands.

Lulu lays down with her dirty feet on Lux’s pillow. Lux cringes, but doesn’t say anything.

“Sort of,” Lulu replies, but continues, “You made us a star cluster!”

Lux scoffs, rolling her eyes as she wipes at them. “Are you even passing astronomy?” she mumbles and Lulu rubs her feet into the pillow in retaliation.

“It’s gravity, Lux,” Lulu says. “We’re all stuck in orbit around each other. It’s just that you and Jinx are falling towards each other, too.”

“Great,” Lux groans, turning facedown into her bedspread. “Stars on a collision course, that sounds _so_ much better.”

Lulu laughs and wiggles until she can rest her head on Lux’s back. “She would love that,” she says and Lux would be inclined to agree until Lulu continues, “Or, she will once it stops scaring her.”

It’s only her faith that keeps her from asking aloud when it will stop scaring her. Both her faith in the First Star’s mission and in Lulu’s belief in her as a sister and maybe even as a leader. It feels almost like her belief in Jinx doubled back at her.

//

But the monster is _huge._

Lux supposes they should count it as lucky that they do get a warning of it’s arrival, even if it’s the sudden eruption of a rift on the edge of the city. The shockwave shakes their windows and leaves a heavy and oppressive aura over the whole city. The people shift, disquieted from the noise, but every star guardian’s hair stands on end as they leap into action.

Without Jinx there they all feel the hole of her presence, the way they aren’t shining the same as usual, but they don’t have a choice to back down, they can’t. Ezreal had asked her early on if she’d choose the world or her sisters, but in the moments when she’s dashing around the battle field shielding everyone trying to keep the chaos from expanding to the city, it feels like the same thing. Ahri’s charm hits the monster right in the face and it turns to her for long enough that Poppy can smash it in the head with her hammer, but it’s working slowly, _so_ slowly.

Soraka can only heal so much of the damage on the move, even as Miss Fortune and Lulu try to take out all the smaller but just as vicious things making their way out of the rift. Janna sweeps one out of the way just before it gets it’s teeth in Ezreal’s calf. They’re being put on defense, pushed back from where they’re trying to hold the line. Janna and Syndra peel off to make chase when the line is broken and – Lux looks over when Ahri lands with less of her usual grace, sees it in her eyes, too – _this isn’t working._

But this is what they do and they can’t quit.

So they fight until Lux is tingling and numb all over, hands burning with the over use of her magic and hoping, _calling out_ to the First Star that Janna and Syndra are enough to keep the civilians safe. She ducks out of the way of Miss Fortune’s rain of bullets, the monster blood it sends flying – she hopes that they are all enough to keep everyone safe. When she finds her way to her feet, she’s shaking, Ezreal’s boost giving her just enough to attack all four of the monsters surrounding her, even though a tendril of the largest monster shoots up through the ground and knocks her into the air.

It takes all her concentration to land on her feet, but even still, she’s winded and dizzy, and has to gather herself.

She closes her eyes, just for a split second; she thinks of the First Star choosing her, of her sisters making her stronger, of all the guardians giving their all and how she _will not let them fall tonight_ , and lastly, as loud as she can, she thinks _Jinx._

Just her name, because that already carries the weight of all they have ever been and ever hope to be and the feelings for which Lux has no other name.

Lux opens her eyes, grits her teeth, and _hopes,_ _hopes, hopes_ as she charges back in.

//

The First Star does hear prayers, albeit in the profound way that something infinite and ancient can _hear_ the whole of existence all at once. It does its best to listen, especially to the cries of its Guardians, its eyes and hands. Sometimes it even speaks back, like the constant not-quite-words whisper in the heart of someone like Lulu or the sense of oneness among all guardians. However, It also can make use of human voices when need be. They are so small, for however much it loves them, that it sometimes forgets this in the scope of All Things.

Yes, the First Star is in all things, but sometimes it is a struggle for people to recognize its will as a good thing. It must address those that distrust differently than it addresses the devout, of course it must.

Case in point, this time when the First Star reaches into Jinx, it lets her feel the desperate, faithful, _loving_ shape of her own name in Lux’s mind, lets her hear what it wants in Lux’s voice. It is the first time Jinx doesn’t burn herself trying fruitlessly to shove it back out.

Jinx hears it and, just this once, manages to listen.

//

Ezreal is vibrating, but that’s mostly because he refuses to call it trembling.

It’s been a long fight, too long. They’re being worn down and – Lux tosses him a shield before he gets a face full of acid, _thank the First_ – it’s only a matter of time before the rift overtakes them. Ahri’s face is pinched like she’s already made her way to plan W and man, oh man, Ezreal starts losing body parts at X so he’d really like—

He jerks when a monster body lands beside him with a splat, full of scorched holes and a metal trap on it’s leg. Relief floods him when he hears from above, _“Yo, Pretty Boy!”_

“What?” Ezreal shouts back, taking out another cog to his left, Jinx’s gun popping quickly through two more to the right. He’s excited now; he’s been tired for a long time, but he secretly _loves_ running on pure adrenaline, he’s good at it. And Jinx is a heavy hitter, a tide turner. He’s feeling high just from her presence. Lux is too busy to turn and see and he’s not dumb enough to call out to her, but she’s already glowing brighter like she can feel Jinx there. Ezreal and the others glow in turn, completed.

Oh, he’s well and truly excited, this is gonna be _good_.

“Wombo-combo!” Jinx screams, landing beside him, singed and with a lit-fuse grin and house-fire eyes.

“ _What?_ ” He blinks when she lifts a truly impressive sized gun off her waist, aiming at the writhing, roaring head of the terror before them, adjusting continuously to follow the monster’s shifting gait.

“Light ‘em up!!” she explains, “Hit ‘em with your best shot!! Gimme your _biggest boom_!!”

Ezreal doesn’t need to be told again, summoning everything in him, all he’s got left and more than that too, _his biggest boom._ It hurts, a little, but he can’t say he hasn’t wanted to try. He feels his feet lifting off the ground with the gathering power in his hands and it feels pretty “ _Hell yeah._ ”

“ _Hell yeah!_ ” Jinx screams back, rocket whirring as she aims it, “3!”

Ahri sees the light gathering around his hands, eyes going wide even from a distance. She throws a heavy charm at the monster and Ezreal cannot let the fear touch him when it’s attention suddenly swivels to her, alone in a sea of cogs, he can’t ,he has to focus.

Jinx sees too and rushes through the end of her count, “ _2, 1,_ _and lift off!!_ ”

Ezreal lets everything go as soon as Jinx does, and lands on his ass just in time to watch it race forward.

A rocket riding a wave of pure starlight.

Though coursing with relief, Lux doesn’t turn when she recognizes the sound of Jinx’s rocket, feels the familiar heat of Ezreal’s magic, not yet. She faces the monster and _trusts_. Trusts their aim and their abilities and the idea—the _fact_ that this will work. She summons her light to her chest, she feels time slow, feels everything fall away except the monster before her and her allies abilities around her. She has to time it right, so she holds her breath, holds her light, until the exact moment they pass harmlessly on either side of her. Then she lets out the most savage scream she can muster and lets out all the light she has in her.

It hits.

It’s gross, watching it’s head explode as it roars in pain, but Miss Forture’s wild laughter as she takes out every little monster left standing in her vicinity sparks off Ezreal and he’s laughing, it _worked._ The biggest of the monsters is slumping back into the rift and Ahri and Soraka rush forward to seal it, Janna suddenly sweeping in to blast the way clear. Lux is staggering on her feet, but with a wave of Lulu’s hand, she’s towering over them knocking monsters away and with a sudden flare of light the rift snaps closed. Anything left on this side is easy pickings, caught before it even reaches the edge of the field, particularly with two sharpshooters doing their best to show each other up in the after battle high.

“Well, fly me to the moon,” Ezreal mutters in something like awe, not even realizing he’s said it aloud until Jinx’s wild bright grin turns towards him. “A shooting star!”

Jinx laughs with her head thrown back, launching one final rocket into the sky with a shout. It’s that sound that finally makes Lux turn, holding her hands like they hurt even as Soraka cups both of them in hers. Her face is so open and longing, Ezreal feels a kick in his chest for her. He turns his gaze to Jinx. Though he doesn’t know her as well as her team does, not by a longshot, he can tell the cocksure way she saunters over to where their teams have gathered is mostly fake. Still, he follows, watches as she smirks at Lux.

Still, he sighs when the first words out of her mouth are, “Miss me?”

//

Lux isn’t sure what she’d been expecting. Surely not something heartfelt, definitely not an apology, but the fact is, _yes._ It’d been hardly a whole day since Jinx had left and Lux had missed her like a phantom limb, hoping for her to turn up for the whole fight. Not even because they were losing, but just because she _wanted her there._ Jinx and her stupid smart mouth and her ember bright eyes and—

Lux – breathing in the ashes, covered in monster blood – starts laughing. It startles everyone else as much as it startles her, but she can’t stop, covering her face and hunching over as she shakes with raucous laughter. It isn’t until Lulu puts a hand on her side, radiating concern, that she realizes she’s switched from laughing to sobbing.

Jinx has never known what to do with people when they cry, but for however long it’s been, Lux’s tears apparently still ring familiar. Her smile pinches a little as she steps forward, wiping Lux’s cheeks with hands that smell like gunpowder. “Oh, come on, _fearless leader_ , we did it! What’re ya sniveling about, huh?”

“You—You’re such—,” Lux is so relieved and in love and tired, she just— “ _You’re such a piece of shit!_ ”

Lulu actually gasps while Ezreal laughs aloud.

“O.M.G.!!! Did you hear that!!?” Jinx exclaims, excitedly, “She cursed, she _cursed_ at me!”

“If you two are done,” Ahri says primly, pushing her hair out of her face. “I’d like to get this cleaned up before the sun rises.”

Jinx says something sharp because she can’t help herself, but they do manage to clean up relatively quickly, the worst of the damage having already fallen back into the rift. By the time they’re staggering home, the two teams closing ranks in opposite directions – except for the moment Ezreal pauses to squeeze Lux’s hand with a wink – Lux is very nearly asleep on her feet. Even with Lulu holding her hand, she keeps drifting closer to Jinx, _like gravity_.

“Jeez, are you trying to trip me?” Jinx says eventually, then just tosses an arm around her shoulder, “Walk straight.”

Lux goes warm at the contact, but she sees Poppy’s lips curl out of the corner of her eyes. “She might not be so tired if we’d been playing with a full deck from the start…”

They all sigh, but Janna is the one who closes her hand on Poppy shoulder. “Please…” _Not tonight, not right now, give it a rest._

The fight they’re all expecting, doesn’t start though, because surprisingly enough, Jinx doesn’t respond. Her arm tenses around Lux and she looks more than a little annoyed, but for some reason, she holds her tongue. Lux is almost concerned enough to ask, but Jinx lets out a raspberry sigh and keeps walking.

They’re on the porch when she finally speaks up.

“I don’t care about fate,” Jinx says firmly, “Or _destiny_ , or any of that. I _barely_ give a shit about being a star guardian.”

“Jinx…” Janna says tiredly.

“ _Barely_ ,” Lux repeats, shocky. In Jinx-speak, that’s a leap and a bound away from not giving a _single_ shit. The look on Jinx’s face says she knows exactly what Lux is thinking and it’s giving her indigestion. She rolls her eyes to look straight up at the sky.

“Listen, the only thing I care about is keeping you safe,” though she looks down directly at Lux after she says this, she turns to the others, too. “If I gotta ride a sun bareback to keep you planet-saving do-gooders alive, then fuck it, I guess I gotta do it.” She looks flustered, maybe even a little flush at this admission, shrugging uncomfortably, “Or whatever…”

It doesn’t seem like anyone quite knows how to respond to that, but Lux knows they only have a few seconds until Jinx’s discomfort gives her the impulse to disrupt the silence with something crass. She doesn’t want that tonight, not when she’s just given them something so honest and still so very _Jinx._ So instead, she acts on her own impulse.

Lux pulls one of her pig tails until Jinx stumbles forward into her arms.

Jinx returns this embrace with a wondrous lack of hesitation, even if it’s only seconds later when she starts wiggling and crowing about how gross it is when all the others join in, too.

Falling into place around them as natural as the pull of gravity.

//

“Come on! Come on, come _oncomeon!!_ ”

Jinx is bouncing excitedly trying to drag Lux from her room before she’s even fully dressed.

“Hold on, Jinx, jeez— _hey!!_ ” she shouts when the moment she tugs her shirt down, Jinx hefts her onto her back.

“But you’re so _slow!_ ” she complains, jogging down the hall and—”

Lux pales. “Do _not_ run me down those stairs, _do_ _not—_ ”

Jinx leaps for it.

And only narrowly avoids sending both of them flying through their new living room table.

“I _just_ built that,” Poppy snaps in warning, already standing by the door with Lulu.

Lux jumps off Jinx, feeling chastised. “Where are we going?” she asks, changing the subject with a shameless lack of subtlety.

“You never tried to get us to do _your_ thing,” Jinx answers and it takes Lux a moment to realize what she even means. She blinks, touched, but also a little embarrassed.

Not embarrassed enough to keep her from hesitantly clarifying, “…Eating?”

Their smiles are knowing and teasing as they glance at each other, sharing a group eye roll at her expense.

“Told you,” Lulu says as Poppy passes her some coins.

Lux flushes, crossing her arms stuffily. “I have other hobbies!!”

“Yeah, sleeping,” Jinx laughs, pinching Lux’s cheek until she bats her hand away.

Janna comes over to fix her hair. “We’ll try to account for nap time, too,” she teases, but Lux has to laugh a little because she knows without a shadow of a doubt Janna is only partly kidding. She hugs her just because she can and Janna lets out a soft breath that’s almost a laugh.

“Where are we going?” Lux asks, excited now.

The faire is just a spontaneous event, a few city blocks sectioned off and packed with rides and performances and the like. Lux visits a few, but most of her time is spent staring wide eyed at all the food stalls, stuffed to the gills with interesting delicacies. She should probably be alarmed by how much she’s spent on food, but she’s too distracted by how much she’s enjoying herself.

It’s a good day, a very good one. It’s not long before the man at the high striker gives Poppy the biggest stuffed poro he has and politely tells her not to come back. That’s a step up from the shooting gallery banning Jinx as soon as she comes into view. All in all, it leaves Lux quite tickled, especially when Janna buys a large blanket and asks if she’d like to lay out in the park.

Lux loves them all and is more inclined to share the admittedly absurd amount of snacks she’d purchased for herself. They’re eating together in the sunlight, showing off their wares and just generally relaxing. For however much Lux does love napping, the strangest thing is she feels almost too happy to fall asleep. She’s in the middle of complementing Janna’s new hair piece when Lulu speaks up out of the blue.

“The First Star says go for it,” she says, moving from where she’d been sitting in Jinx’s lap over into Janna’s. “It’s not a mistake.”

“Eh?” Lux blinks at her in confusion. While she loves that sort of advice, she doesn’t have the faintest clue what that could be referring to. Even when Poppy rolls her eyes, looking pointedly down at her bento box and Janna smiles slyly. “Go for what?” she asks, but then she catches sight of Jinx’s face in the corner of her eyes.

She looks angry, but not _really_ angry, and actually, it’s a lot closer to annoyed embarrassment, she’s _blushing_. What in the _world_ could make _Jinx_ —?

//

Jinx hates being told what to do, she always has.

Even when she was a child and less difficult, when _everything_ was less difficult, she never liked being told what to do. When she lost the only people who would even make an attempt at doing so, she decided that moment nobody else would. Not even when some star from the _beginning of fucking time_ tried to tell her how special she was and how she could save the world, nope, not even then. These guns are hers and she’s going to use them how she wants, this is _her_ life and she’s going to _live_ it how she wants and _Jinx hates being told what to do…_

But the First Star has at least given her the power to keep her sisters safe, to keep _Lux_ safe, which… that’s all she really wants to do at this point. So when they say she never listens, she can correct them. She listened that _one_ time when her teammates’ lives were on the line; any other time she listens to the First Star’s advice for the _same_ reason doesn’t count.

This time doesn’t really count either, though. It doesn’t matter what the First Star says.

Jinx has wanted to kiss Lux for years.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry this took way longer than it should have, so I really, _really_ hope you like it. Thank you so much for helping the cause (and helping me contribute to the cause)!! Now that you’ve gotten me started, I have no doubt I’m going to write more embarrassingly fluffy League fics. Alas, such is life.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I wish you a blessed and happy new year!


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